Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He’d know all about it.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Beazley interjecting

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the Leader of the Opposition made an offensive remark and it should be withdrawn.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the Leader of the Opposition made an offensive remark, he will withdraw it.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, what I said in response to the heckling of the member for O’Connor was that he was an expert in bashing Aboriginals. I withdraw it.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw without reservation.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdrew it.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will stand up and withdraw.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stood and withdrew it, and I will do it again.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition. I call the member for Lingiari.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Minister, given the concerns that you have recently expressed for Indigenous families in Central Australia, particularly in remote communities, why was your department’s recommendation to establish one of the 65 family relationship centres in Alice Springs ignored by the government, leaving only one centre in Darwin to service the entire Northern Territory?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! A member of the opposition has asked a question. I presume members of the opposition want to hear an answer. I call the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the very first meeting I had in Darwin with the Chief Minister, she highlighted to me the sad plight of the people in Alice Springs. I did not go back to my department and say, ‘Let’s consider this’; I said to her on the spot, ‘I will assist you. Our department and government will assist you and work with the Northern Territory’—

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you wouldn’t mind, you might just learn something. At that meeting I made a commitment that we would do so. The reason I was back in Alice Springs some two to three weeks later or shortly thereafter was not to give hollow promises but to deliver on a commitment to fundamentally change the way the town camps—the itinerant population that comes in—

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. This is a question about family relationship centres, not about his trip to Central Australia.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari will resume his seat. The minister is in order.

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we committed to there was not one centre. We committed to doing the following: first of all, upgrading what people refer to as the town camps, which all of us would understand to be suburbs which are run by Indigenous people rather than the municipal council.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$20 million, I inform the honourable member, so that power, water, sewerage and rubbish collection could be brought up to scratch. Over the next two years—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wonder why it is that this upsets the Labor Party so. We also undertook to establish additional hostels and additional dry-out centres, to address the sad plight of people who are picked up by the night patrols, picked up by the police, who are taken to the one centre at the moment, given a shower, a bed for the night, clean clothes and sent on their way the next day and who then repeat the cycle—so that they will have somewhere to go where they can have real interventions to change their lives. I have been back a second time in order to try and secure the land to do that.

That is not all we are doing. We have also put into place in Mutujulu funding for a police station so that law and order can be delivered—real resources into real communities. We also promised last week to provide additional resources to the intelligence desk between Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory to get to the perpetrators of crime so that fewer people are subject to the abuse you are referring to.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Snowdon interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lingiari!

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Furthermore, we have put a sniffer dog team into Darwin—

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Snowdon interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari is warned!

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and now we commit a further one to Alice Springs to get to the root and branch cause of these problems: substance abuse. We are going to the cause of the problem, not simply dealing with the symptoms, as governments of all persuasions with goodwill have done far too much of in the past, while dealing with the problem far too little.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will resume his seat. Has the minister completed his answer?

Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.